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LIVING IN ITALY

Where do all the native English speakers live in Italy?

Have you ever wondered how many English speakers live in Italy? Here's a look at how many there are and where they live - and which areas they tend to avoid.

Published: 9 March 2023 16:30 CET
Houses in Venice, Italy
Italy’s home to over five million foreigners, including some 50,600 residents from Anglophone countries. Photo by Katy Cao on Unsplash

Good weather, stunning landscapes, amazing food and relaxed ways of life all make Italy an extremely popular destination among foreign nationals.

According to the latest data from Italian statistics office Istat, Italy is currently home to just over five million foreigners, who make up around 8.5 percent of the country’s total population. 

This data only refers to people who have officially registered their residence with local authorities, and doesn’t include foreign nationals who only spend part of the year in Italy or dual citizens.

But exactly how many of these residents come from English-speaking countries and where do they all live? Here’s what emerges from the data.

Brits dominate the Anglophone population

Italy’s 50,600 residents from Anglophone countries only account for one percent of the foreign population.

READ ALSO: How to apply for an Italian elective residency visa from the UK

For context, the Romanian community, which is the largest in the country, is made up of well over a million residents and accounts for roughly 20 percent.

Out of all the native English-speaking residents, Brits are by far the most-represented group as around 28,400 UK nationals – that’s nearly three in five Italy-based Anglophones – are known to live in the country.

The top three is completed by the US with 14,500 residents and Ireland with 3,300. 

Then there’s Canada (2,000), Australia (1,400), South Africa (700) and New Zealand (300).

Lombardy is the most popular region

Lombardy, which boasts the largest job market in the country and includes Italy’s financial powerhouse, Milan, is home to some 9,000 native English-speaking residents, making it the most popular region for Anglophones.

READ ALSO: What are the best Milan neighbourhoods for international residents?

Unsurprisingly, the UK is once again the most-represented country as around 5,000 British nationals – that’s nearly 18 percent of all Brits in Italy – live in the northern region.

Milan's famous Duomo cathedral

Lombardy, the northern region including Italy’s financial capital, Milan, is home to some 9,000 native English-speaking residents. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

But Lombardy also has a sizeable US community as 2,400 Americans live in the area.  

Lazio, which includes Italy’s capital, Rome, is ‘only’ the second-most popular region for Anglophones to move to. 

While it has a lower number of English-speaking residents in total, Lazio is the first choice for Americans (2,800 residents), Irish people (700), Canadians (400) and New Zealanders (56).

Tuscany the third-most popular destination for all English-speaking communities, from Brits to New Zealanders. 

Other regions with notable numbers of English speakers are: Emilia-Romagna, which includes the lively and youthful Bologna; Veneto, home to Italy’s floating city, Venice; and Piedmont, including its industrial hub, Turin.

The Eternal City’s appeal

Rome might not have the slick economy of the northern metropolises, but its tourism industry, government institutions and cultural cachet are enough to make it the single top city for native English speakers. 

Around 6,900 Anglophones live in the Eternal City, with Brits (3,200 residents) and Americans (2,400) being the largest communities. 

Rome's Colosseum

Around 6,900 Anglophones live in Rome, with Brits and Americans being the largest communities.
Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP

Interestingly, Rome acts as a magnetic pole for the entire region as over 80 percent of UK and US nationals living in Lazio are concentrated in the city. 

READ ALSO: Reader question: What are the rules on moving household goods to Italy?

After Rome, Milan and Florence are Anglophones’ favourite city destinations.

Milan is home to 4,500 native English speakers, with over half of them being originally from the UK, whereas Florence has 2,400 English-speaking residents.

Anglophones tend to avoid southern regions…and the Aosta Valley

All of Italy’s southern regions count comparatively lower numbers of native English-speaking residents, with the lack of job opportunities in the area likely being the main determining factor.

Basilicata and Molise are the second- and third-least popular regions, with just 180 and 191 English-speaking residents respectively.

That said, the region where you’re least likely to hear English spoken is not located in the south of the country.

In fact, the Aosta Valley, a small autonomous region in the north-west of the peninsula, is home to as few as 151 Anglophones – though this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as this is the least populous region in Italy.

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MOVING TO ITALY

Readers recommend: Eight books you must read to understand Italy

After we published our own recommendations of some of the best books to read for those considering a move to Italy, The Local's readers weighed in with suggestions of your own.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:24 CEST
Readers recommend: Eight books you must read to understand Italy

In our previous guide to some of the best books to read before moving to Italy, we asked our readers to get in touch with your recommendations.

A number of you responded with your favourite reads about Italy; here’s what you suggested:

Ciao Bella – Six Take Italy

An anonymous reader describes this as “a delightful book about an Australian radio presenter who takes her husband and four children Bologna for a year which turns into two years (one being Covid).”

Kate Langbroek’s comic memoir “had me laughing and crying,” they write.

A Small Place in Italy

An apt choice for those considering their own rural Italian renovation project, Sam Cross recommends this book by British writer Eric Newby about buying, remodelling and moving into a cottage in the Tuscan countryside.

Cross also recommends Newby’s earlier work, ‘Love and War in the Appennines’, about his time as a British prisoner of war captured in Italy by the Germans in WWII.

READ ALSO: Eight of the best books to read before moving to Italy

Here, the author tells of his escape assisted by local partisans, “including a girl, Wanda, who became his future wife. A beautiful story,” says Cross.

The Italians

The Italians is written by veteran Italy correspondent John Hooper, who formerly wrote for the Guardian and is now the Economist’s Italy and Vatican reporter.

From politics to family traditions and the Mafia, the book tackles a range of aspects of Italian history and culture without getting lost in the weeds.

Simone in Rome describes it as “the best single volume on Italian customs and culture there is”.

READ ALSO: Nine things to expect if you move to rural Italy

Venice

It may be more than six decades old, but Jan Morris’s Venice is still considered one of the definitive English-language works on the lagoon city.

Book, Venice, library

A woman reads a book in Venice’s famous Acqua Alta library. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Though a work of non-fiction, the book has been compared to Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited for its nostalgic, evocative tone.

“A personal view, beautifully written,” recommends reader Mary Austern.

Thin Paths

Described as a mix of travel book and memoir, Thin Paths is written by Julia Blackburn, who moved with her husband into a small house in the hills of Liguria in 1999.

Despite arriving with no Italian, over time she befriended her elderly neighbours, who took her into their confidence and shared stories of the village’s history under the control of a tyrannical landowner and the outbreak of World War II.

“Write it down for us,” they told her, “because otherwise it will all be lost.”

READ ALSO: Six things foreigners should expect if they live in Rome

In Other Words

If you’re currently learning Italian, consider Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words / In Altre Parole, which discusses the writer’s journey towards mastery of Italian through full immersion.

Reader Brett says, “The book is written in both Italian and English, presented on opposite pages, so it’s also a nice learning tool!”

Lahiri has since written Racconti Romani, or Roman Tales, a series of short stories set in and around Rome riffing off Alberto Moravia’s 1954 short story collection of the same name.

A Rosie Life in Italy

Ginger Hamilton says she would “highly recommend the ‘A Rosie Life in Italy’ series by Rosie Meleady.”

It’s “the delightfully written true story of an Irish couple’s move to Italy, purchase of a home, the process of rehabbing it, and their life near Lago di Trasimeno.”

The Dark Heart of Italy

Reader William describes The Dark Heart of Italy by Tobias Jones as an “excellent” book.

The product of a three-year journey across the Italy, Jones takes on the darker side of Italian culture, from organised crime to excessive bureaucracy.

Though it was published in 2003, Dark Heart stands the test of time: “twenty-odd years old but the essential truth of it hasn’t changed,” William writes.

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